6:30 am, Port-au-Prince, Haiti We face the day unafraid. The sky is blue and beautiful. They told us to expect the rainy season. However, today we enjoy being on a Caribbean Island in the spring.
I have a colleague who was here in March. He warned me that I would never forget the smell of Haiti. I braced myself for it when I got off the plane. I didn't notice anything unexpected. I've searched for that smell ever since. Maybe it is because they have tended to the bodies of the 200,000+ who died in the quake. I only smell a poor, developing nation. There are no public works, really, to be seen. Trash is everywhere and the streets and full of animals, people, diesel trucks, and dirty water. That's to be expected here.
Expectations are difficult here. We're headed off to work a "mobile clinic" today in a community outside the city. I look forward to beginning our work today--unsure of what to expect.
8:45 pm
Today we served in a isolated community that has been in great need since long before the earthquake (that really is the case everywhere we go in Haiti). This community has never had a doctor before. We bounced over rough gravel roads leading to the remote location, thankful for our four-wheel drive vehicles.
Our medical team arrived to find hundreds of people waiting for us. They gathered early that morning and found what shade the could. They were quiet and still as we walked past them and onto the porch where we would set up the clinic.
Pastor Jude and those from his church set organized an impromptu triage center, exam areas, and pharmacy in the area about 20' by 15'. Three doctors and two nurses got to work as quickly as possible to see the patients. After a few hours, the patience of our patients wore thin. They pressed in on all sides in an effort to see the doctors. I had this picture of Jesus teaching in the house where so many people wanted to see Him that they crowded around the door outside, straining to hear. (See Luke 5:17-26). Some friends wanted to get their paralytic friend to be healed by Jesus. They made a hole in the roof and lowered him down. Jesus healed him before everyone's eyes.
While the Haitians crowded outside our open-air porch, they too wanted a healing in the name of Christ. We said we wanted to bring that healing. But what would that mean? I looked up and saw the crowd passing a four-year-old girl over their heads and over the wall, through the doorway and place her at my feet. She was obviously in some sort of distress. We put her in a chair and tried to cool her off. Then her body began to shake. The doctors began to work on her as she began what would turn out to be a two-hour seizure. Using one of our trucks, the team was able to get her to a nearby clinic to get her stabilized and then to a hospital. Our doctors saved her life.
She had no history of seizures, no family history, no other symptoms. There had never been a doctor there. Our team was there the day her seizures began to appear. It all came together for me. On our first day of clinic, we saw God show up in a powerful way to use the gifts He bestowed on our team to meet the needs of His people in Haiti. We were humbled to be a part of it.
Later, Patrice took me on a walk "around the neighborhood." We scrambled up paths just wide enough for one person (or the animal that made them) to see the new church/school. The previous one was lost in the earthquake. The new open-air, tin-roof building is home to the church on Sundays and a school during the week. An open-pit latrine 30 feet away serves as the only bathroom. In the building, six classes are held in a space big enough for maybe two classes in the USA. A seventh class meets outside under a blue tarp. The children all want to be in the class under the tarp. Patrice told me that they know a tarp will not hurt them if it should fall in another earthquake.
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